As a matter of fact, they did not again visit the inhospitable shores of the heavenly Gunga. Often, however, they turned their flight toward the valley of the malachite rocks. Reposing under the mighty crown of the Coral Tree, they breathed that perfume of perfumes which streamed from the crimson blossoms, and, in the depths of their memory, there was opened up to them the vista of their former lives—life preceding life in some strangely appointed order, back into the far-distant past.
Sometimes in palaces, sometimes in huts, they saw themselves again, but whether robed in silk and muslin, or clad in the coarse fabrics of the village loom, the mutual love was ever there. At one time, it was crowned with the happiness of their union, at another, separation due to life's destiny, or to death, was their sad lot, but, happy or unhappy, the love remained the same.
And they saw themselves in other times, when human beings, were mightier than now, in those eternally unforgettable heroic days, when he tore himself from her arms and bestrode his war elephant, in order to march to the City of Elephants, to the aid of his friends, the Pandaver princes, in their quarrel with the Kauravas; when, fighting at the side of Arjuna and Krishna, on the plain of Kurukshetra, on the tenth day of the gigantic battle he yielded up his heroic soul. But she, when she reeves the news of his death,
183
